Well everyone’s been waiting patiently for this to arrive since it was announced months ago that Crispin Porter + Bogusky was taking over a healthy piece of the Microsoft account. Here’s the first slice of the $300 million pie and I think they’re off to a pretty good start.
They were faced with the challenge that Microsoft is a brand that has never been synonymous with fun. Microsoft has also seemed to be way too many things at the same time. When I think of Microsoft Windows I see it in so many incarnations, from dusty old desktops to fast albeit clunky laptops with too many vulnerabilities. When you think of Mac you think sleek, sexy, and most of all, simple and cohesive. Microsoft needs something familiar, something that when you see it you say “that’s Windows”. Is that going to be Jerry Seinfeld? I actually kind of hope it’s going to be Bill Gates. Why not be the face of the brand? Remember this from his CES 2008 retirement address?
Mac might have made the geek look like a loser but that can change; geeks can be endearing. Windows needs to move from cold to endearing and I have a feeling that’s where they’re going. Windows needs to inspire if it’s to have any chance. It also needs to drop a few jokes along the way and stop being so stuffy, which I think they’ve achieved here.
This is gonna be a hell of an exercise in rebranding and if there’s anyone who will achieve the impossible or die trying it’s Alex Bogusky. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this one plays out. That being said, I’ll still never give up my Mac.
1 Comment
September 8, 2008 at 12:33 pm
For me it feels like an opportunity wasted. If MS really wants to rebrand itself, it’s going to take more than irreverent ads. This campaign (or any campaign) alone won’t change the perception of MS as strong-arming corporate bullies who make an uninspiring and unoriginal product.
Suppose you work next to an asshole for many, many years. If they just show up one day and start being cool to you, would that alone regain your trust in that person? Probably not. To truly repair the relationship, they would also need to acknowledge that they’d been an asshole in the past and apologize for it. Only then can a true reconciliation take place.
Same goes for MS and its frayed relationship with consumers. MS needs to say, “Look, we realize we’ve been jerks. Not only that, but we’ve been jerks who’ve prized universality and cost-effectiveness over creativity and innovation. But from now on, we promise to be better, and here’s how we intend to fulfill that promise.” It’s a difficult thing for a company to do, but Comcast, who has quite possibly a worse rep than MS, made a similar plea very recently about their customer service and it has already begun paying off in the way of improved customer perceptions. And when MS signed on with CPB, I was hoping and expecting a similar approach. Few agencies embrace the truth about their clients’ brands like CPB, so if anyone could guide MS through such a difficult admission, it would be CPB. Instead we get Seinfeld and Shoe Circus. All we needed was for Superman to show up with his Amex card.
I just hope the rest of the campaign gets better.